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British Ministers Quit Government In Row Over Draft Brexit Deal

British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves No. 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday. Now that May has reached an agreement with European Union negotiators, she faces still another difficult task: persuading skeptical Brits to get on board.
British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves No. 10 Downing Street in London on Wednesday. Now that May has reached an agreement with European Union negotiators, she faces still another difficult task: persuading skeptical Brits to get on board.

Updated at 6:25 a.m. ET on Thursday

Hours after British Prime Minister Theresa May announced a tentative deal charting the U.K.'s exit from the European Union and assuring the public that her Cabinet supported it, two key ministers abruptly quit her government in protest over the proposed pact.

The first to call it quits was Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, who said in a letter of resignation that he could not, "in good conscience," support the draft deal. Not long after, Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey followed suit.

Their departure, and the exit of two other junior ministers, deals a serious blow to May, whose political survival is closely linked to Brexit.

After the resignations, May appeared in the House of Commons to defend the deal. but said her government is continuing to prepare for a no-deal exit, should it be necessary.

"Mr. Speaker, what we agreed yesterday was not the final deal," she said to jeers from the opposition.

"It is a draft deal that means we will leave the EU in a smooth and orderly way on the 29 of March 2019," May said to loud laughter. "And which sets the framework for a future relationship deliver in our national interest."

"We have been preparing for no-deal and we continue to prepare for no-deal because I recognize that we have a further stage of negotiation with the European council and then that deal when finalized ... has to come back to this House," she told lawmakers.

On Wednesday, the draft Brexit agreement had cleared its first crucial obstacle, with May announcing the tentative deal and saying that her closest ministers support it.

"This is a decisive step, which enables us to move on and finalize the deal in the days ahead," May explained to reporters outside the prime minister's residence at No. 10 Downing St. "These decisions were not taken lightly, but I believe it is firmly in the national interest."

The prime minister's remarks were brief, deliberate — and spoken over the bellows of demonstrators gathered near the media.

The scene made another thing clear: Cabinet approval would be only the first step on the draft deal's rather daunting path to adoption.

Besides those who have quit on Thursday, dozens of other British lawmakers across the ideological spectrum have expressed their skepticism — or outright rejection — of the draft. Many of them began doing so even before they got a look at its formal details. Some of the loudest critics have come from within May's own Conservative Party.

"Is the prime minister aware that, if the media reports about the EU agreement are in any way accurate, you are not delivering the Brexit people voted for and today you will lose the support of many Conservative [members of Parliament] and millions of voters across the country?" Peter Bone, a Conservative hard-line Brexit supporter, told lawmakers Wednesday.

Many Conservatives are upset that the deal does not go far enough in separating the U.K. from the EU's single market. They argue that several of the provisions in the 585-page draft agreement — now published in full online — leave the U.K. subject to EU regulations in several of the most contentious areas of the divorce, including a long transition period and protections for British and EU nationals abroad.

But perhaps the most divisive issue covered in the agreement comes some 300 pages in: the thorny matter of Northern Ireland.

Under the 20-year-old Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of sectarian violence, the U.K. region shares an open land border with the Republic of Ireland, a committed member of the EU. That border has spelled trouble for negotiators, since it appears to run contradictory to a Brexit that would largely close U.K. borders to the EU's single market.

It's also trouble for May, in particular, since her fragile governing coalition depends on the support of the relatively tiny Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland. Though a majority of the region in 2016 voted to remain in the EU, the DUP has vehemently objected to a deal leaving it "tied to EU regulations."

"It's a poor deal. It's a bad deal. It's a deal that [May] said she'd never accept," Sammy Wilson, the DUP's Brexit spokesperson, told the BBC on Wednesday. "And I think that when it comes to the House of Commons, she's going to find that there are many people who share that view."

The draft has also come in for criticism from some of the more usual suspects — May's rivals in the Labour Party and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, both of whom had campaigned to remain in the EU. In this case, Sturgeon's complaint is the opposite of the one voiced by the DUP: She is upset with Scotland's greater distance from the EU.

"It would take Scotland out of the single market, which would be bad enough in and of itself, but it would do so while leaving us competing for investment and jobs with a Northern Ireland that would effectively be staying in the single market," Sturgeon told British broadcaster ITV. "That would be the worst of all possible worlds."

That said, the deal has the backing of many EU members too — including the taoiseach (prime minister) of the Republic of Ireland, Leo Varadkar. He praised the agreement as "a very solid step on the journey."

EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier described the deal in similar terms when speaking to reporters in Brussels. "I have the feeling that we have taken a very decisive, and fundamental step today towards an orderly withdrawal," he said.
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org/.